Phytoremediation-by-design: community-scale landscape systems design for healthy communities

Abstract

Since the Industrial Revolution humans have introduced hazardous compounds into the environment. Interest has grown for combining urban planning/design processes with phytoremediation as a systems-based approach to environmental remediation. Phytoremediation has potential to transform traditional urban infrastructure processes thereby enhancing the formative structure of the urban context. A historic view of integrating ecosystems within urban planning and design processes is provided, and an ecologically based approach to creating urban contexts through environmentally responsive community planning and design is proposed. Evidence supports incorporating phytoremediation into the community-wide urban planning and design process to establish and sustain communities, environment, human health, and prosperity. Conclusions are drawn from historic and emerging urban planning and design theories, practices, and present and past successes in creating environmentally responsive sustainable communities. Conclusions are supported by a review and analysis of case studies focused on this topic. Based on these processes this research supports a hybrid approach to phytoremediation-by-design, which borrows from past efforts and builds on current urban planning theory and ecological principles.

Keywords:

• phytoremediation
• urban planning
• urban design
• urban ecology
• urban structure
• ecosystems
• landscape systems

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the United States Department of Agriculture National (USDA) Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under a Capacity Building Grant (number: 2013-38821-21460).